1) I have been using Chris's Dynamic Compressor on podcasts and music to listen in the car and my iPod in noisy environments. I usually apply a ratio of 0.7 to 0.9. Does anyone know how to get the equivalent results in Sox?

2) I am using the compand effect and getting a lot of clipping. Does the -G and norm options apply to the input? How do I normalize the output and prevent clipping?

Thanks to your suggestions the clipping is now under control. Looking at the file in a waveform editor, it's very "spikey" and "peaky". Compressor and Audacity is able to make it more "blocky", "smooth", and "flat". I've tried many different combinations of settings but just can't seem to get good results with SoX.

Looking at the file in a waveform editor, it's very "spikey" and "peaky". Compressor and Audacity is able to make it more "blocky", "smooth", and "flat". I've tried many different combinations of settings but just can't seem to get good results with SoX.

To get a flatter waveform, you’ll need to make the transfer function flatter too, and possibly shorten the attack time. E.g.,

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compand 0.05,0.2 6:-90,-90,-80,-1,-10,0 -10 -30 .1

yields quite a level waveform for me. Whether that’s useful or not is a different question.

Are you aware that

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sox --plot=method ...

(where “method” can be gnuplot or octave) will plot the transfer function?